Uzumaki

Resentment

Sakura undid the knot and released the pressure on the wound, and Satsuki hissed, expression tense with acute pain.

"I'm going to pull the last layer off now," Sakura said, looking up at her.

Satsuki nodded, her knuckles turning white.

Sakura peeled the fabric away, and the sight made her stomach turn. She had roughly and tightly wrapped the wound to staunch the blood flow whilst she tried to lay Naruto down, and now as she undid it she regretted her lack of attention. The wound had left a jagged fleshy outlook from where Satsuki had ripped the sword from her flesh. A thick gunge pushed through the chunks of tissue, platelets and blood mixing to make uncomfortable pink.

From what Sakura could tell, Orochimaru had not intended to kill her. Her arm did not appear broken, and the blood flow was under control.

Sakura looked up to Satsuki. The girl was biting her lip, tears pooling in her tightly closed eyes. She was shaking.

"I'm almost done," she said, slowly peeling away the bandage, and Satsuki gasped. It came off slowly, Satsuki's breathing heavy as the bandage finally peeled off of her skin.

Sakura reached into her bag, and brought out a small bottle.

"This'll sting," she said, and rubbed some alcohol from her pack on the wound. Satsuki visibly winced, but didn't say anything.

Sakura unrolled some fresh bandages on the wound, tight but not tight enough to stop blood flow to Satsuki's arm, and tied it roughly.

"Lie down," Sakura said, and she cleared a space behind the girl, trying to lie her down comfortably next to Naruto.

"Thank you," Satsuki said, delirious with pain.

Satsuki turned her head to Naruto. He was sweating, visibly shaking, eyebrows knotted as though deep in the throes of an argument.

Her expression tightened, and she closed her eyes tightly.

"Goddammit, Naruto," she said. "He'll be fine. He's Naruto. He could never be anything else."

Sakura nodded, diverting her gaze from Naruto's pained form.

"Of course," she said, biting her lip. "Naruto'll be fine."

--

"I won't sleep."

The wood was dark, night having settled a choking blanket of sky over Sakura that should have reminded her of the open night beyond; instead, the darkness enveloped her, every rustling leaf suspicious and every distant figure an enemy. The stronger fear than that was sleep, the sleep that pulled at her eyelids and clouded her senses.

Sakura dug her nails into her knees, the pain barely rousing her from an almost slumber. She looked to the side.

Naruto lay on one side, Satsuki on the other. Satsuki's arm was wrapped in bandages, fresh white material that she'd replaced just an hour ago stained with a deep red. Sakura was not keen to rewrap her arm; they had limited resources here, with no way to obtain more bandages without ransacking another team's supplies, and Sakura knew there was no chance of that.

And the pain. Sakura knew Satsuki to be stubborn, refusing to show emotion or weakness, but when she touched that arm, peeling fresh material from the skin, Satsuki bit her lip to stop from screaming and wept.

It shook Sakura.

"I won't sleep," she said, staring at Naruto's pained form. "I won't sleep."

He was no better, but there was something horribly, horribly eerie about it. Naruto was not gravely injured, or didn't appear so; all there was was a strange patterned seal on his stomach, three tomoe on top of a swirl, glowing bright as though it were red hot. And his expression was disturbed; as though trapped in a fitful nightmare.